Citadel of Sorcery: CoS Introduction - Part Two

Yesterday, the folks from MMO Magic presented the basics behind their upcoming MMORPG, Citadel of Sorcery. Today, they go into more detail about their plans for: PvP, Combat, Rces, Classes and more.

A WORLD AT WAR

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You play one of the Fallen Heroes, a soul of renown, brought back from the dead from a time in the past when true good fought true evil. In those days the Reflected Worlds were in a Golden Age of prosperity, only threatened by the sudden attack of demons. But that time is gone… and you are awakened to a world where evil holds sway. The Reflected Worlds are on the brink of destruction as two powerful forces of evil battle for supremacy, with all free folk in the middle. Into this time of terror, this war between the evil sorcerers of the Citadel and Morphael’s twisted creatures, a Hero is reborn.

You are that hero, and your soul is rescued and placed into a new body. In exchange, you are sworn to a nearly impossible task… bring down both the evils that threaten the Reflected Worlds. You must destroy the evil sorcerers that rule the Citadel, and defeat Morphael and his hordes of evil creatures. To do this you and the other Fallen Heroes must join the evil forces of the Citadel of Sorcery and attack Morphael and his hordes, yet secretly you must also work from within to bring down the rule of the evil Sorcerers and liberate the Citadel of Sorcery.

ABOUT THE WORLD

The world contains both massive multiplayer areas as well as fully instanced playing worlds for smaller groups. These instanced worlds are gigantic, and have endless and seamless adventures waiting your group. By making full use of this extensive and advanced Instanced system the game can create FAR more in depth and interesting quests for solo players or groups. These adventures take place in a world environment this is dynamic, changing and affected by what you accomplish. The Reflected World is a vast place, with every type of conceivable terrain and countless villages, towns, cities, caves, dungeons, and more. You will travel under and over land, down rivers, over seas and through the air.

INTRIGUIING QUESTS

Our quests are not your garden variety simple task lists you may be used to from other MMOs. Each adventure you undertake is designed for your character and takes into account what you have accomplished in the past. Each one is a rich and interesting quest with story, plot and twists that continues your story in logical fashion. The NPC enemies you have made will return to challenge you; the NPC friends you have gained will at time assist you. Organizations you have helped or thwarted in the past will come into play in the future. And no other player will go down the exact same story as your character, your story is uniquely your own. Perhaps most importantly, they are not linear grinds. Your choices, successes and failures along the path shape each quest into a unique adventure. It is no longer a matter of just killing your way through hordes of creatures to reach your goal, the choices you make at key points will shape the branches of your story. Simple put, what you choose to do… matters.

SOLO AND GROUP

You are never forced to group in Citadel of Sorcery, yet joining Guilds and creating adventuring groups allows you to enjoy group tactics and shared experiences. But if you feel like playing alone, you will not be penalized. ALL adventures are available to the solo player, as they are to groups. When you do group, Citadel of Sorcery uses several innovative systems to allow higher level characters to group with lower level ‘newbies’. This can be done to help them along, to ‘catch them up’ to your level, or to just join their adventure for a short time. Our Quest Generation system takes the experience and skills of the players in your group into account and creates adventures that are suitable (even if the group changes during the adventure). We can’t reveal the technology behind this as it is part of a proprietary system built specifically for this game and is a good portion of the technology we have been designing and building for three years.

RACES

Besides human, there are five other new and unique races in the game. We have some unique methods of choosing your race that we hope you will find enjoyable, but we’ll leave that information for when you begin your story. I can tell you that you will have a good understanding of all the advantages, and yes, disadvantages of each race before you chose your race. You role players out there will appreciate the deep history behind each race, and their unique characteristics. And we hope that all types of players will enjoy the way the variance in the races impacts the game and enhances the strategies and fun.

CLASSES

Citadel of Sorcery does not have a limited set of class choices. You do not choose a class to start the game; instead you may create your own unique class based on what you learn during character advancement. Alternately, for those wanting help, there is a University that will provide you with a ‘plan’ on how to become one of the thirty some University Cadres. However, you are by no means locked into one of those plans, you can just create you own class since there are nearly unlimited combinations. Gaining skills is not random, nor are you handed one you do not like when you go up a level. Instead, you can quest for your next ability and plan out exactly what you want to learn. You get to advance your proficiency through both study and practice.

COMBAT

The combat system in Citadel of Sorcery is designed to offer you many strategic possibilities the entire time you fight, yet not be overly complex so that you cannot understand your options. Partially this is accomplished with an innovative user interface. We call our UI system, ‘Situational UI’. This means that you don’t have a lot of UI clogging up the screen, but when a UI element is needed, it shows up at that time. This system also uses as many direct and intuitive interfaces as possible. The situational UI brings up what you want when you want it, or allows you to directly manipulate the item.

The combat system is also revealed in a systematic progression. Initially combat is very simple with simple strategies, but as time goes on we gradually add new strategic options. This is also timed with the gradual increase in varied opponent AI. This way players are never overwhelmed by too much to learn, yet not bored with a stagnant combat system or enemies that always act and fight the same way. Players will need to evolve their combat strategies over time to cope with new monsters and their altered tactics. Combat is integral to the enjoyment of our MMO, and we have spent a lot of effort to give you the most enjoyable system possible.

OPPONENTS

Your opponents have actual intelligence in the game. This doesn’t mean they are all stupid or smart, but vary quite a bit. You must adapt your tactics in a battle to the intelligence of your opponent, some of whom will even learn as they fight. Unlike many games, the same combat strategy will not work against all opponents. We should note that although monsters have varying intelligence, it is also consistent. A zombie is always stupid, where an evil sorcerer is always fairly smart, but you wouldn’t want to use the same tactics on these two adversaries, trust me on that.

PVP

Citadel of Sorcery is foremost and primarily a quest and adventures based game, focusing on giving players intelligent opponents in story driven adventures where your choices shape the outcome. This means we don’t fit into the standard frame of current games, so don’t expect to see those elements. Our game is designed to make the world intriguing and challenging in new ways. Yet, we do offer players the ability to fight one another solo or in groups so they can measure themselves against a live opponent. This is done through bouts in the Coliseum where solo players or groups can be schedule bouts and fight. These bouts can also be witnessed and wagered on by other players or the contestants.

ADAPTIVE GAME PLAY

As a player you don’t always want the same thing every time you play. Some days you might want some simple and somewhat mindless fun. Other days you might want to do some exploring, or hunting. Other days you might like to get involved in local happenings… like a posse forming up to hunt down a killer, or the protection of a town under siege. And most often you might like to delve into a true and amazing adventure where you are the lead character in your own story. Citadel of Sorcery is designed to allow players to decide what kind of adventure they want at that moment, and then deliver that game play.

A GRAND CLIMAX

Yes, it is true, like any good fantasy novel or series Citadel of Sorcery has an epic climax where the player gets to be a part of the resolution of the entire story. “How can that be!” You might ask, horror struck at the idea of an MMO not being an endless grind. Well, Citadel of Sorcery IS NOT an endless grind. You live through your story, and at the end you get that big pay off of a climatic story conclusion. You get the satisfaction of facing the ultimate challenge, the climax of your epic adventure.

And then… is this the end?

Of course not! We don’t boot you from the World, or make you start over. Like every great fantasy book, there is always the sequel. Your character continues on in the game, and their new story will begin where the old ended. This new story will build toward its own grand climax down the road.

FINAL NOTE

There is so much more to tell you about this new type of MMO game, but many of the design elements have to be kept secret in this competitive development world. We’re attempting to bring new and innovative concepts to every portion of the game. Players have asked for something new in their MMO game… many are demanding a revolution in the design of the MMORPG genre… we’re trying out best to make Citadel of Sorcery that game.

We choose to reveal the game to this extent and this early simply because we wanted to get input from the players. We knew we would take a lot of flack from a few people who feel it is necessary to tear down any developer who attempts to do something new. Since the art of the game is only at prototype level, we knew this would also take a lot of heat. However, there are also those who understand that we are doing our best to fight a system where new game design is discouraged as ‘too risky’ to fund. We’re doing this by investing our own time and funds to the project, and have for three years so far. However, the team members are committed to the ideals of this game, and are willing to work to make it a reality for those who would like to try something different in their MMO game. Please be patient and kind, and help us with constructive criticism rather than angry attacks. And remember the words of the Enchantress…